How Phoenix food banks, non-profits, academics work together to fight food waste, hunger

Maricopa County Food System Coalition is our local food coalition. Here's what you need to know about them on Stop Food Waste Day.
Ranjani Venkatakrishnan/azcentral.com

Friday is Stop Food Waste Day and on this day of action, we want to introduce you to the Maricopa County Food System Coalition, known as MarCo. The largest regional food coalition in Arizona, it's a group that fights food issues around the year

Greg Peterson runs the Urban Farm and is a member of Maricopa County Food System Coalition.(Photo: Michael Chow/The Republic)

Story Highlights

MarCo's diverse membership, structure, research and policy plans make it unlike any other in Arizona

Food councils allow people from different backgrounds to collaborate on solutions, influence policy

There are about 250 food councils in America. MarCo is one of a handful in AZ

MarCo is not tied to a government agency or non-profit, though members can be employees of either

While each point exists apart from the others, they are part of a larger design.

Every food-related problem has its own people working toward solutions, usually independently from each other.

Food banks work to solve hunger in America’s vulnerable population. Public-health advocates implement policies to combat obesity and diet-related illness. Non-profits and academics theorize how to get nutritious food to more people by reducing waste.

Like a blank puzzle, you can guess what the big picture is, but you won’t know until the connections are made. That’s the role of a food policy council: Be the pen that connects the dots.

St. Mary's Food Bank is a member of the Maricopa County Food System Coalition.(Photo: Charlie Leight, The Arizona Republic)

Founded just three years ago, it’s the largest regional food coalition in Arizona. Its diverse membership, structure, research and policy plans make it unlike any the state has seen before. Its existence puts Phoenix on par with about 250 other places across the U.S. with such advocacy groups.

Friday, April 27, is the second annual national Stop Food Waste Day. On this day of action, we want to introduce you to this local group that’s working year-round to tackle a puzzling array of food issues.

“People think of the food supply chain as a farm-fork-waste loop,” said Kate O'Neill, who leads MarCo’s food-assessment team. “The system is really much, much, much more complex than that.”

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What are food policy councils?

Before you can understand MarCo, you need to know about food policy councils.

The first council was formed in 1982 in Knoxville, Tennessee, to tackle food inequity. Now, councils are working across the country to address whatever food issues are important to the community they serve.

The Detroit Food Policy Council used citizen recommendations to help craft the city’s urban agriculture ordinances. The Salt Lake City task force helped launch a curbside composting program that diverts food waste from landfills.

MarCo helped establish the Community Gardeners of Maricopa County, which encourages people to grow their own food. It’s also a formal partner of Phoenix’s Food Action Plan, which was adopted to create a more sustainable food system and increase access to healthy food by 2050.

Manuel Corrales harvests vegetables at the “Spaces of Opportunity” an 18-acre farm and community garden in partnership with the Desert Botanical Garden, which is a member of the Maricopa County Food System Coalition.(Photo: Rob Schumacher/The Republic)

The growth of food policy councils was slow for the first 20 years. They expanded dramatically starting in the 2000s, jumping from 31 to 215 between 2005 and 2015, according to a report from the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future. Now, the total hovers around 250, according to Mark Winne, a food-system expert and senior adviser for the center.

“It’s hard work working together, but it's what’s necessary.”

Mark Winne, author of “Stand Together or Starve Alone”

No matter which cause they choose, the common thread of food policy councils is knowing that the best people to confront food-system issues within their community are those who live there. They’re driven by the democratic belief that citizens and government can work together for positive change.

“It’s hard work working together, but it's what’s necessary,” said Winne, whose book, “Stand Together or Starve Alone,” chronicles the collective impact of the U.S. food movement.

“This is a collection of experts about food. There’s no place that has this many people with knowledge about food ... that gives them power right away,” he said.

MarCo is powered by members, not government or non-profits

United Food Bank is a member of the Maricopa County Food System Coalition.(Photo: Sam Erdmann/Special for The Republic)

Among the founding members of MarCo were employees of food banks, the city of Phoenix, Maricopa County, the University of Arizona Cooperative Extension and urban farmers. They spent more than a year on the crucial decision of how to structure the council.

Should it be housed within government, such as a city council or county health department? What about organizing under the umbrella of a food bank or other non-profit? Could they be independent and still find the support and resources they need?

C.J. Hager of Vitalyst is a founding member of the Maricopa County Food System Coalition(Photo: Vitalyst)

“We wanted the coalition to truly benefit and be identified with the community,” said C.J. Hager, who works at Vitalyst Health Foundation and was part of MarCo from Day 1. “(We were) concerned with who had control, whose voices were heard.”

The group feared being housed with the government would relinquish control to that body. If a city funded the group, it would logically want the group to focus on city issues. Ditto for non-profits. A food bank would want to put resources behind chronic hunger and not backyard gardening.

So, they opted for an independent coalition model. Yes, MarCo’s members come from government, academia, businesses and non-profits. But when it comes to the coalition, they are volunteers who share ownership of the group.

It wasn’t the easy choice to take. Being associated with a group brings a safety net of funding and resources that you lose when you got it alone.

“There are so many ways you can slice and dice a discussion about food.”

C.J. Hager of Vitalyst Health Foundation

It also comes with its own set of growing pains. MarCo has open membership, which means members can be novices or experts. It also makes it hard to “whittle down” what to focus on, Hager said.

In the end, having the power to set their own agenda outweighed the comfort of being dependent.

“There are so many ways you can slice and dice a discussion about food,” she said.

MarCo will share findings with public

St. Mary's Food Bank is a member of the Maricopa County Food System Coalition.(Photo: Nick Oza, Nick Oza/The Republic)

After deciding on how to structure themselves, MarCo members needed to get the lay of the land.

They could look at individual reports of the obesity, food insecurity, agriculture and food deserts, but those are pieces of the puzzle. A comprehensive assessment of Maricopa County’s food system didn’t exist.

“You can’t influence a system without having a glimpse of how it's designed to function.”

Kate O'Neill, leader of MarCo’s food-assessment team

That was a problem for several reasons. First, it means there’s no reliable way to see opportunities for change. There’s also no baseline to measure progress. And, it put non-profits and other stakeholders at a disadvantage when they apply for grants because they can’t quantify or describe the food system.

“You can’t influence a system without having a glimpse of how it's designed to function,” said O'Neill.

MarCo got a grant from Gila River Indian Community and set out to assess the state of food and all the various sectors it touches. They enlisted the help of Ken Meter, whose Crossroads Resource Center conducts food-system assessments across the country. MarCo members also worked directly on the project.

St. Mary's Food Bank is a member of the Maricopa County Food System Coalition.(Photo: Crystal Ochoa/The Republic)

They interviewed more than 30 stakeholders, including farmers, school districts, distributors and food banks. They hope the information they provide will help MarCo “understand barriers within supply chains that we might help remove,” O’Neill said.

Results are expected to be released in the coming months and the council plans to share their findings with the public.

What’s next?

Greg Peterson, owner of The Urban Farm, kneels in his garden July 10, 2017. He sells and educates people about growing citrus trees in the Valley.(Photo: Michael Chow, Michael Chow/The Republic)

In addition to the food-system assessment, MarCo has a laundry list of issues they want to address.

They’ll build on their work with the University of Arizona. In January, they released a report on the economic impact of agriculture in the county and the Gila River Indian Community. It found the total sales contribution of agriculture to the county economy was $1.95 billion in 2015. Now, they’ll put that data to use.

Golos Farms, family-run farm at the Phoenix Public Market, which is a member of the Maricopa County Food System Coalition.(Photo: Brandi Porter)

Members would like to help eliminate barriers to urban agriculture in cities across the county. They want to support farmers markets and restaurants that source local food. They want to increase access to healthy food to the people who live in food deserts (which is nearly half the Phoenix population).

One day, Hager said, MarCo could hire staff and scale up as an organization. Even if that doesn’t happen, they’ll keep connecting the dots to “change the perception about the food environment in Maricopa county,” she said.

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